The Renegades: Nick (5 page)

The sadness vanished from her eyes while
they laughed together, and he felt ten feet tall and bulletproof.

Then panic sliced through him.

What the hell was he doing, being so proud of his power? Callie Sloane was the one with the power. In the last ten minutes, hadn’t she dragged him through every feeling there was? Hadn’t she made him lose his temper and even want to cry real tears? That made him a pitiable creature, in anybody’s tally book.

If he couldn’t get a grip on himself he’d better stay away from her. And he would.

After tonight.

N
ick built Callie a small fire pit in spite of her insistence that she could do it herself, and snaked in enough wood from the deadfall around the trees on her claim to cook supper. Then he left her rustling around in the wagon gathering up something to cook. She wouldn’t hear of letting him bring something from his own supplies, although hers looked pretty darn meager. Meager enough that, unless she had more than the “small amount” of money that she had mentioned, she would never make it to spring. Damn it all, she ought to just move to town and get a job if she could never go back to Kentucky.

He smooched to the gray and, with no spurs
and no leg, the two-year-old responded like a seasoned mount. Nick patted his neck.

“You’ll do,” he said, “now let’s go home to put this wheel in the water.”

He was determined to see to his chores and get back to Callie’s little wagon camp before dusk. Dark was the natural time for bad men to do whatever mischief they’d planned while hiding out in the day. Any no-good sidewinder in the country could come riding right up on her, as the Peck family had done.

Of course, he knew he couldn’t protect her all the time. He didn’t
want
to, for that matter. But tonight would be full of short-trigger situations she’d not be able to handle.

“I’ll take her a gun,” he told the gray. “And if she’s really such a dead shot, she’ll be all right. After tonight.”

As soon as they reached the pond, he set the wheel to soak, carried the rim on up to the cabin, and did the chores. Then, acting on an instinct he didn’t even notice until the gray was unsaddled, brushed, and turned loose into the canyon pasture trap, he whistled up the Shifter.

“I might need you this time, old pal,” he muttered, and took a long minute to slip his arm around the black’s neck and stand with his cheek against him.

The Shifter rumbled at him, contented as a cat full of cream.

Any time there might be danger, he didn’t feel ready unless it was the Shapeshifter between his legs. The big black was the only one, horse or human, he’d trusted for a long time now.

The only one he’d talked to who’d talked back.

That was the most likely reason he was so curious about Callie Sloane, and always wagging his chin at her. He’d been talkative as a old woman ever since she’d taken a run at his claim.

Loneliness had never gotten to him before, but it could happen. The voices of those soldiers on the canyon rim this morning had sounded as strange as the call of a parrot to him. Come to think of it, those were the first human voices he’d heard for at least two moons, since that Bar X cowboy had brought the warning note from Fox. Maybe he was so curious about the Widow Sloane because he was going soft in the head.

“Reckon that’s so, Shaper?” he said as he threw on the blanket and saddle. “Must be, ‘cause we’re not about to get all tangled up with some woman, now, are we?”

Just the thought of how tangled he already was with Callie Sloane was enough to make a man downright daunsy, as his old boss used to say about anyone downcast or moody. But he didn’t really feel downcast, getting ready
to ride back to sand-in-her-craw little Mrs. Sloane. Must be the prospect of eating somebody’s cooking besides his own.

He went to the cabin for a handgun to loan her, and then washed up and put on a clean shirt. No sense smelling like a skunk if he didn’t have to—and besides, it was nothing but polite to slick back your hair before sitting down to a lady’s table for dinner.

The first thing he noticed when he rode out of the mouth of the draw and up to her campfire was that she, too, had changed clothes. She wore a dress with no collar, and the front was cut low enough to show the pretty curve of her neck into the hollow of her collarbone. Her shape sure was womanly for her being only a girl.

“It’ll be ready, soon,” she said, looking at his fresh shirt. “Seems we both cleaned up for Mr. Baxter, if he should decide to drop by this evening.”

“Wouldn’t want to be rude,” he said, as he swung down.

“No, I can testify to that,” she said wryly, bending over to turn something in the skillet.

Her breasts swelled beneath the cloth, her skin pale as milk against the green calico that reminded him of spring apples. Her freshly combed hair rested in a neat coil on the top of her head, but stubborn wisps of it still escaped the pins. One lazy strand curved around and
cupped her face, brushing at her jawline, which he’d love to trace.

He tried to make himself look away, but at that moment he couldn’t It wasn’t that he’d been too long without seeing another human; it must be that he’d been too long without seeing a
woman
. Now he wanted to touch her.

After Matilda he had sworn off women forever, and he intended to keep that vow. He reached for his old rage, willed it to rise and drown out the desire.

God knew, and so did all the cattlemen and Indians who’d ever roamed here, that the Strip was a land that could bring a longhorn to its knees and make a wolf hunt a hole. A woman alone had no more chance than a chunk of ice in hell of surviving either a cold season or a hot one on this prairie, even if she had shelter.

She looked to be intelligent; she was a schoolteacher, damn it. Why didn’t she have sense enough to know that this land would pull that iron determination out of her, one endless day at a time, and beat her small bones to bits against it? Why didn’t she see that this sky would arch above her and draw the spirit out of her, one endless, lonesome night at a time, and make her feel like a speck of dust on a grass blade against its vastness? Why didn’t she leave here before the Strip got hold of her and hollowed her out until she never
felt like flashing that blinding smile, ever again?

He ought to be hanged for ever offering her water. It was an invitation given out of guilt, and so was everything else he’d done to help her this whole day. He was lower than an egg-sucking dog for staking her a claim in the first place, and the only way to redeem himself was to make her see reality and go.

Nick turned to stride to her wagon, then began rudely pawing through her things, looking for tools, looking for supplies, looking for ways to make her see the true insanity of this venture. That Vance character must not’ve had the sense God gave a wooden goose, or during all their dreaming and planning he’d have told her the thousand reasons not to try homesteading without help.

“What are you doing now?”

She sounded mad, suspicious—as if she couldn’t trust him not to steal some of this pitiful stuff. That fed his anger.

Five tools. Count them. Old and rusty and dull as a case knife. Five pathetic tools to build a shelter before the blizzards blew, five cheap-made tools to tear open the face of the Earth Mother and force food from her before this cask of flour and barrel of beans ran out.

“Have you tried this plow?”

Frowning, she walked toward him.

“You don’t have the muscle to hold this plow point in the ground.”

“What do you know about my muscle? What do you know about what I can do?”

She walked up to him, bristling like a porcupine.

“I haven’t tried it yet, no. I haven’t exactly moved onto my claim yet, much less laid out a garden plot.”

“Oh, you’ll have to plow a whole lot more than a garden,” he said. “With as few trees as you have, you’ll have to build your house out of sod. Think you can keep that wild team of yours hitched for all that ground-breaking?”

She stared at him, clearly furious, one eyebrow raised.

“I reckon,” she said dryly, “since I did keep Joe and Judy both hitched for the Rim.”

He shrugged.

“Hope you’ve got a sharpening blade in here somewhere,” he said. “The point of this thing’d be hard to stick in a bowl of butter, much less the drought-hard earth.”

Callie answered with a distinctly unladylike snort and turned away.

“You certainly know how to ruin a supper,” she said as she stalked back to the fire. “I thought we’d have a civilized conversation and a nice meal.”

Strangely, that touched him. She had been looking forward to this supper.

Well, why not? No doubt she was doubly lonesome, being so far from home and he, no doubt, was the person she knew best west of the Mississippi—it wasn’t that she’d especially been looking forward to supper with him.

Then the fact that he’d even had that thought made him furious with himself again. Her loneliness was not his responsibility.

“Look, Callie,” he snapped, striding toward her, “supper’s not important. Plowing is, if you’re staying. Have some sense!”

“
You
have some!” she shouted, wheeling to face him. “I won’t be running to you for help if my plow is dull; I won’t be begging you to feed me. You’re not going to be put out in any way by my presence on the next claim!”

Except in one way: wondering how you’re faring
.

She stopped short, drawing a long, trembling breath to calm herself. He saw that she was much angrier than he’d realized.

“I didn’t ask you to fix my wheel.”

She brushed the curving strand of hair away from her face. Her hand shook.

“True,” he said, trying not to yell how stupid it was for her to stay here and die. “I’d just hate to ride by your place someday and find your body—frozen or starved or dried to a husk or overcome by the heat.”

He took a step toward her and stared into her huge green eyes.

“Listen to me, Callie Sloane. You don’t know this country. You’re a strong, smart woman or you’d never have made it this far, but you need to go back to Kentucky. Go back to your folks and your home.”

“I can never go back to my folks and my home,” she said in a low, quiet voice that tore at him.

Sadness flooded into her eyes.

“Papa said never to come back as long as I Uve.”

He waited and waited.

Finally she continued.

“Vance … was from the other side of the feud. My kin and his have been fighting for a hundred years.”

“Why?”

She shrugged.

“Who knows? Nobody even asks. It’s the way it is, like the sumac turning red in the fall.”

Callie turned her face away to hide her tears, and he badly wanted to comfort her. But what comfort could there be for banishment from the land you belonged to? He would feel cut loose from the earth if he had to leave this prairie forever.

“We have sumac out here, too,” he said awkwardly. “That’ll be one thing that’s the same.”

She looked at him, her huge green eyes glistening,
thanking him for trying to help. A man would always know where he stood with her, because, unlike Matilda, she was one who couldn’t lie worth shucks. Her eyes told the truth.

“Look, Nick,” she said finally, “let’s forget about everything and eat this good food. I haven’t eaten all day, have you?”

“No.”

Food had seemed a travesty this morning, the day of the Run. Now that day was over, and he was eating with the enemy.

“Pull up two barrels,” she said, “and I’ll fill our plates.”

So he did, and she did, and they began the meal of fried cured ham and sourdough biscuits and dried apples he had smelled simmering. Suddenly he felt starved.

“I made fresh, strong tea,” she said, “to keep us awake.”

He nodded. Poor girl. Didn’t she even have any coffee?

“Where’s the conversation?” she said, teasing him with a small grin. “Tell me a story.”

He shook his head.

“Too many years as a cowboy on this range,” he said. “You eat when you get a chance and do it fast. Talk’s for afterward, if you don’t have to get in the saddle again.”

“All right,” she said. “Sorry there’s no butter
for the biscuits, but I’ve got honey in the wagon.”

She started to get up, but he stopped her with an upraised hand.

“Save it,” he said. “It’ll be mighty fine this winter.”

“Will you come over and share it with me?”

He looked at her for a long time. God knew, she was one brave girl.

“I will,” he said, “and I’ll bring the butter if you’ll tell all your other visitors not to ride up into my canyon.”

She gasped with delight.

“You have a milch cow, besides two horses?”

He nodded. “One thing I always hated about the cow camps was no cream, no milk, no butter.”

“Wonderful!” she said. “Next time I go to town I intend to trade for some chickens, and then we’ll have eggs, too!”

A strange feeling twisted his gut. Not only was he eating with the enemy, he was making plans to keep it up all winter. With a woman he was trying to rim out of the Strip. He was losing his mind.

“Did you hear what I said about the neighbors?”

“Yes. I’ll explain that you’re an ill-tempered, churlish, shameless, bold-faced Sooner who shoots first and asks questions later.”

She picked up her tin cup and looked at him over the rim.

“You don’t want them to see your place? You already built a cabin?”

“Anybody can see that cabin’s been there since long before I could be called a Sooner.”

Then, from some impulse he couldn’t explain, he added, “My daddy built it when I was a little boy.”

She stared at him, transfixed.

“Then you’re right to be a Sooner,” she cried. “If it was my homeplace, I’d take no chances with it, either!”

He could see her thinking about it, perhaps trying to imagine this land when the cabin was new.

“Was he one of the cattlemen who used to lease grazing land in the Strip?”

“No. He came out here to catch wild horses and never went back to the Nation.”

“The Nation? Was he a Cherokee?”

He nodded.

“An eighth or so. My mother was nearly fullblood.”

He clamped his mouth shut. Nothing like confessing to being a Sooner and an Indian to a rank stranger. What was it about Callie Sloane that had loosened his tongue?

“No need to noise the word ‘Indian’ around any more than the word ‘water,’ “ he said. “Only eighty allotments were set aside for
Cherokees, and my claim wasn’t one.”

She answered him with a solemn, thoughtful nod. Her eyes were darker than usual and her face more pale in the deepening dusk. Its shape was so pure, its look so full of light against the night, that he wanted to gaze at her forever.